The Bloomington Republican said state government has been mismanaged for years, and said Illinois has effectively been "a rudderless ship."

The 47-year-old said fighting corruption would be another top priority, and one prescription for stamping out corruption would be whistle-blower laws that offer greater incentives for those with knowledge of corruption to come forward.

This is Brady's second gubernatorial run. He lost a 2006 bid for the GOP nomination with about 20 percent of the vote.